* Technologists.
Technologists design the organization's products and services. They
are the engineers at all layers, the analysts and professional
specialists, the designers and the gurus.
Technologists maintain a locus of expertise in an engineering
discipline, technology, or product line; and they use their expertise to
design, build, install, enhance, tune, repair, replace, and support
solutions.
Technologists often utilize external product vendors as extensions to
their staff.
Note that this definition does not distinguish those who build from
those who repair. Essentially the same professional expertise is
required to do both: knowledge of the design of the organization's
product line.
If you drill down to the next level of detail, you'll see with
greater resolution the products and professional specialties. But as you
drill down, never split this building block by tasks, methods, tools, or
any subset of the services offered by Technologists.
In more complex functions and industries, there are two major
categories of Technologists:
- Applications
- Base
Applications Technologists produce purpose-specific products.
In IT, the term "application" refers to data-object-specific
software, systems designed to handle information about a particular
topic. IT applications technologists can be divided into groups based on
the applications (objects) they support, but should never be divided by
tasks such as development versus maintenance.
Base Technologists are specialists in disciplines and technologies
that are not purpose-specific. Applications may be built from a variety
of components, and may be built on top of a variety of platforms. These
components and platforms are termed "Base Technologies."
For example, civil engineers are Applications Technologists; they
build bridges. They employ a wide variety of Base Technologies, such as
stress engineers, electrical engineers, and traffic engineers, who
contribute parts and advice.
In IT, Base Technologists sell and support computing, database, and
telecommunications platforms; end-user computing tools;
software-engineering tools and methods; and information-handling
disciplines such as artificial intelligence.
In a corporate example, Applications Technologists are the engineers
who design the company's ultimate products, like cars. They employ Base
Technologists who design engines, suspensions, interiors, manufacturing
processes, etc.
In summary, the domains of Technologists are based on their
specialties, defined in terms of expertise in a specific range of
products
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